UN’s Feltman in Sri Lanka with U.S. Agenda for federalism

At a time the introduction of a federal constitution in Sri Lanka got somewhat derailed with the ignominious nationwide electoral defeat for both the coalition partners – UNP and SLFP – at February 10 local government polls, and an unprecedented emergence of a nationalist platform of Mahinda Rajapaksa-nurtured Podujana Peramuna (Peoples Front), United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, who laid out a strategy in 2012 in a close-door session in New York along with U.S. State Department and Obama White House officials to maneuver Sri Lanka toward a federal constitution, visited Colombo March 8 through 11, his second visit in six months, for a renewed dialogue with the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe administration.

A savvy diplomat, Feltman exhibited his impartiality, unlike Athul Keshap, sent his assistant to meet with the Joint Opposition strategist and former president’s brother Basil Rajapaksa.

Jeffrey Feltman's life of divisiveness and maneuvering during his thirty-year stint in the US State Department and as the UN's political boss since 2012, the Asian Tribune once again use this March 2018 visit to shed some light to what is in stock for Sri Lanka which paid the highest price to protect her territorial integrity and sovereignty domestically defeating the Tamil Tigers - the US/West once declared as indispensible.

On a previous occasion the Asian Tribune carried a report of his 'political maneuvering' and his 'divisive tactics' when he was the US ambassador to Lebanon and thereafter as assistant secretary at the US Department of State.

The Asian Tribune seriously alerts political leaders and activists of both sides of the political divide to be cautious of Jeffrey Feltman of what he intends to do in Sri Lanka, again during his second visit, and what he endeavors to achieve following this visit. It is interesting to ascertain what the Sri Lanka regime compromised in exchange of what.

With the American Ambassador Athul Keshap rushing to ‘console’ President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe immediately after the electoral debacle of their respective political parties on February 10 to save a regime that was shattered to its core, and Under-Secretary-General (Political Affairs) Feltman on a three-day official visit, obviously the incumbent regime is under severe pressure to fall in line with the American agenda: promulgating a federal constitution, which the UN and state department believe will appease the Tamil minority as part of the reconciliation process, and Sri Lanka’s active participation in Washington’s geo-political interest in the Indian Ocean Region when China’s increased presence is highly felt. The ‘carrot’ brought with him to Colombo is his authority, as the chief of political affairs in UN, who officially oversea the overall function of the UNHRC in Geneva where Sri Lanka is in mess due to several US-sponsored resolutions, during the Obama era, and Sri Lanka’s self-inflicted wound – Resolution 30/1 of September 2015.

Mr. Feltman, who joined the UN in 2012, was a thirty-year career official in the State Department who is unable to divorce himself from America’s global agenda. The Under-Secretary-General (Political Affairs) slot in the United Nations is reserved for the United States for decades, and the position all these decades was occupied by a retired senior state department official. It is the second most influential position next to the Secretary-General. The holder of this position as the head of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) advises the UN secretary general on peace and security issues globally, while overseeing “good offices” initiatives and field-based political missions carrying out peacekeeping, preventive diplomacy, and peace-building activities.

Federalism: In early 2012, under the auspices of the Office of the Under Secretary-General of the United Nations (Political Affairs) B. Lynn Pascoe, attended by many professionals that included President Obama’s close confidante and information czar Prof. Cass Sustein and his wife Dr. Samantha Power, the U.S. president’s human rights-war crimes-genocide crusader in the US National Security Council, to start a process of restructuring several developing Third World nations’ constitutional arrangements to promulgate federalism as an answer to ethnic minority grievances.

The Under-Secretary-General (Political) B. Lynn Pascoe too was a retired career diplomat from the US State Department.

Since the early 2012-process commenced, a number of closed-door meetings and seminars at which the partitioning of UN member states has been discussed. Most of the meetings have been held under the direction of the UN Interagency Framework for Coordination on Preventive Action (the Framework Team or FT). The control of the FT fell into the domain of the current under-secretary-general of Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman who took over from Pascoe in June 2012.

When a former American Foreign Service Officer occupies the Number Two slot of the UN, the State Department has extensive leverage over the operation of the United Nations, and it has been seen that both branches – the UN Department of Political Affairs and the US State Department – work together to achieve common objectives. As much as the state department and its representative – US ambassador to UN- maintains jurisdiction over the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, under internal UN arrangement, Jeffrey Feltman overseas the functioning of UNHRC.

During the Framework Team of 2012 was in progress, Sri Lanka, apart from Nepal, was also a target for the identity federalism engineers. During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama received large campaign donations from front groups for the Tamil Tigers. As a way of thanking the Tigers for their support, the Obama administration and the International Peace Institute of Norway (which has been called a front for NATO and the CIA and which supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE] during their long civil war against the Sri Lankan government) have been pushing for a federal system in Sri Lanka that would create autonomous regional units. Since the Tamil Tigers were crushed in May 2009, the Tiger global operative organizations have been agitating an autonomous region in the Tamil majority North-East Provinces in Sri Lanka heavily lobbying in Western capitals and frequent visits to Geneva.

Feltman in possession of his carrots and sticks was in Colombo last week dealing with a much weeker government after the electoral debacle.

It is this scenario that the Asian Tribune attributes the second visit of Jeffrey Feltman as a significant one.